Making notes isn't just about jotting something down from your reading so that you can use it later. It is an important part of planning and thinking about your assignments. Students often go wrong with plagiarism because they copy something directly from a book into their notes and then forget that it is not in their own words. Copying out text word-for-word won’t help you gain anything from your reading. Your lecturers want to know that you can understand what you have read so you need to ensure that you put things in your own words. Doing this at the note-taking stage will ensure that you don't accidentally plagiarise while writing your essay. It's also a good idea to keep your notes: you may need to prove how you wrote your essay later on.
Top tips for good note-taking:
Use key words, phrases and abbreviations.
Don’t simply write summaries of each source – look for relevant points.
Try to take critical notes, in your own words.
Question what you read: is this a reliable source?
Carefully document where information is from and writing down full citation details: author(s), title, date of publication, place and name of publisher, page number(s). This will save time later on when you are writing your essay and need these details for in-text and bibliography references.
If writing out a quotation you’ll use later, try using a different colour pen. Or if using electronic devices, put quotation marks around the quote to avoid later confusion.
Note taking Ideas
Note-taking
Making notes isn't just about jotting something down from your reading so that you can use it later. It is an important part of planning and thinking about your assignments. Students often go wrong with plagiarism because they copy something directly from a book into their notes and then forget that it is not in their own words. Copying out text word-for-word won’t help you gain anything from your reading. Your lecturers want to know that you can understand what you have read so you need to ensure that you put things in your own words. Doing this at the note-taking stage will ensure that you don't accidentally plagiarise while writing your essay. It's also a good idea to keep your notes: you may need to prove how you wrote your essay later on.Top tips for good note-taking: